Greater White Bear Lake Community
White Bear Lake, MN · EIN 47-3487091. Reported 50 grants totalling $6,120,689 to 29 organizations across tax years 2021-2025, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Greater White Bear Lake Community, the IRS classifies it as a public foundation -- a grantmaker that raises its money from many sources rather than from one donor (NTEE T30).
- How spread out its giving is. 29 distinct organizations, with 81% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is extreme concentration. A grantmaker sending three quarters of its money to one organization is in practice a support fund for that organization, whatever its classification says, and an unsolicited request is very unlikely to go anywhere.
- How much its list changes. 48% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 56% median for grantmaking charities -- lower than the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $15,000; the smallest was $5,100 and the largest $4,965,262. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communitygiving | Saint Cloud, MN | $4,965,262 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Newtrax Incorporated | White Bear Lake, MN | $437,559 | 5 | 4 | 2024 |
| City of White Bear Lake | White Bear Lake, MN | $175,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| White Bear Center for the Arts | White Bear Lk, MN | $46,100 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Regions Hospital Foundation | Minneapolis, MN | $41,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| White Bear Area Food Shelf | White Bear Lk, MN | $40,108 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| University of Northwestern-St Paul | Saint Paul, MN | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| North Springs Church of the Assemblies of God | Lino Lakes, MN | $36,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Bethel University | Saint Paul, MN | $35,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| White Bear Lake Area Historical Society | White Bear Lake, MN | $33,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Mahtomedi Area Educational Foundation | Mahtomedi, MN | $29,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lakeshore Players Inc | White Bear Lk, MN | $27,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Young Mens Christian Association of the North | Minneapolis, MN | $23,800 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| White Bear Lake Area School District | White Bear Lake, MN | $23,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Childrens Performing Arts | White Bear Lake, MN | $21,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Mahtomedi Area Food Shelf | Mahtomedi, MN | $15,200 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lake Links Association | Willernie, MN | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| St Andrews Evangelical Lutheran Church | Mahtomedi, MN | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lyngblomsten Services Inc | Saint Paul, MN | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Animal Rescue League of Iowa Incorporated | Des Moines, IA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Guadalupe Center Inc | Immokalee, FL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Hammer Residences Inc | Wayzata, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Initiative for Orchestra Innovation | San Francisco, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Mission Safari | Scandia, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| White Bear Sailing School | White Bear Lk, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Willow Lane Elementary Parent Teacher Organization | White Bear Lk, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Rise Up Health Clinics | White Bear Lk, MN | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The White Bear Lake Rotary Foundation | Mahtomedi, MN | $5,660 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| White Bear Lake Area Educational Foundation | White Bear Lake, MN | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
13 of 29 (45%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Communitygiving
CONTINUE THE MISSION OF GWBLCF - City of White Bear Lake
CITY PARK GAZEBO, FIREWORKS, AND OPERATIONS - White Bear Lake Center for the Arts
OPERATIONS AND PROGRAMMING - White Bear Lake Emergency Food Shelf
CULTURALLY CONNECTED FOOD DISTRIBUTION - Lake Links Association
CYCLING TRAIL ENHANCEMENTS - Willow Lane Elementary PTO
FIELD TRIPS/WINTER CLOTHING
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 20 of 29 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 7 | $652,509 | $20,000 |
| 2022 | 10 | $94,177 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 15 | $205,400 | $9,900 |
| 2024 | 17 | $203,341 | $10,000 |
| 2025 | 1 | $4,965,262 | $4,965,262 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
100% of its giving went to organizations in Minnesota. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
Down to the city
Foundations that fund only organizations they pick gave to this one
8 private foundations that told the IRS they contribute only to organizations they select themselves reported 26 grants totalling $1,357,227 to Greater White Bear Lake Community. That is 44% of the 18 funders we can see giving to it. Those 8 foundations do not take unsolicited requests -- their own returns say so. The IRS classifies this organization as a grantmaking organization.
4 of them gave in more than one tax year, which is the only durability signal the filings carry.
What that does not mean. It does not mean an application here reaches that money. A grant from a closed foundation is often a designated gift or a donor-advised fund earmarked by whoever gave it, and has nothing to do with any open programme this organization runs. Neither tax return says which, so neither do we. The list below is who put money in. It is not a route to it.
| Foundation | State | Reported | Grants | Years | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Osilas Foundation | Minnesota | $965,000 | 11 | 5 | 2025 |
| Paul and Suzanne Hanifl Foundation | Illinois | $325,200 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| F T Weyerhaeuser Family Fund | Minnesota | $55,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Bay Branch Foundation | Florida | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Dellwood Foundation Inc | Minnesota | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Cossack Foundation | Minnesota | $1,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| The Johnnie and Shirley Johnson | Arizona | $1,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Amazonsmile Foundation | Washington | $27 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
Both the count and the total are floors. A foundation appears here only where its return named this organization clearly enough for us to match the name to an EIN, which we manage for about two thirds of 990-PF grant rows. There are more; we cannot name them.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $10,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Minnesota.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Greater White Bear Lake Community's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2021-2025). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 1 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: Po Box 10626, White Bear Lake, MN, 55110.
EIN 47-3487091 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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